Protecting Your Fertility

Baltimore MD – New research presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Annual Meeting in Baltimore indicates that a high-fat diet, not just being obese, could impact fertility in both men and women.

An Illinois court recently ruled that it was permissible to use pseudonyms to protect the identity of 40 plaintiffs in an ongoing malpractice case against an Illinois fertility center. Doe, et al. v. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, 2014 IL App (1st) 140212 In 2013, Northwestern University reported a malfunction of its cryogenic tanks that stored sperm and testicular tissue specimens, which were cryopreserved by patients intending to use them for future fertility procedures. Many of the specimens were stored by patients who subsequently underwent treatment for diseases that rendered them unable to have biological children without the cryopreserved specimens. The malfunction resulted in the damage or complete loss of the specimens. Forty of the affected individuals filed this claim against the hospital, its faculty foundation, the cryotank manufacturer and the vendor companies involved in the maintenance of the croytanks.

Belgian researchers have found that a triple-wash technique is effective for cleansing antral follicles (egg-containing cells) isolated from ovarian tissue contaminated with malignant cells, while maintaining the follicles’ viability. This is an essential step in developing a process to preserve fertility for young girls who must undergo chemotherapy to treat childhood cancer, particularly leukemia.

National Infertility Awareness Week is April 19 to 25 and ASRM is participating in a Twitter Chat on Infertility. For an hour, representatives from six diverse organizations with expertise in infertility will be tweeting the facts about the condition and answering questions like: What is infertility? How is it treated? How is infertility misunderstood? How does the infertility affect the lives of patients?

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